Test new kind of antifouling, silicone based

[Jim Cate]

Interesting stuff, BB, and thanks for posting. I'm wondering how Prop Speed and its imitators works, considering your experience. We've been able to remove the few barnies that we have found on our prop by a simple gloved-hand wipe. Maybe the PS is significantly thicker than the product you were testing...

Eventually someone will get the combination right, and we will become bottom wipers instead of bottom painters!

Jim

[lateral]

Originally Posted by BigBeakie

FWIW, I'll relate our experience with a UK developed foul release product that we had high hopes for. You can see several of their Youtube promotional clips. It does not purport to prevent growth, it purports that all types of growth can be just wiped off. This claim is misleading, and here's why.

We worked with the Australian distributor in trials for over 6 months on several test plates that were hung in a variety of different waters on the east coast of Australia. Places that were notorious for growth.

Slime just wiped off, no matter how thick it became, leaving the surface as clean as new. I was getting excited.

Coral worm wiped off, leaving only a very slight change in the surface, I would rate it good as new. I was almost convinced.

It failed with barnacles !!

When barnacle larvae grow, they start forming their shell as a thin ring at the base. This ring then grows up in a cone, getting thicker and stronger, extremely quickly. As it grows bigger than about your little finger nail, say 0.5 to 1 cm, the bottom edge of the shell cuts through the (relatively soft) coating right to the hull surface substrate. Then it sticks like crazy, as well as carves out a ring of the foul release coating which falls away leaving an unprotected spot.

Lots of work was attempted to emedy this as I understand it, but to no avail.

The Australian distributor pulled the plug, much to his credit, rather than promote a product that ultimately would fail.

IF you sail only in non-barnacle waters ( is there such a place?) and/or IF you are hyper diligent to wipe the hull every single week, without fail, then this might work for you.

We wanted to cruise in the Kimberly, so looking over my shoulder for crocs while rubbing the hulls on a 50 foot cat, didn't seem like a prudent solution to us.

We think we're going CopperCoat, which only needs a burnish with a scrubber pad maybe twice a year, when in warm, clear and safe waters.

I genuinely am disappointed it didn't work out for the foul release, and hope somebody cracks it one day. But you must test in heavy barnacle growth areas, IMHO.

Thanks for your feedback. Great to have an objective appraisal on that particular brew, which I suspect was a just PDMS acrylic copolymer one I think it is.
Seems to me even with the newer FR's (Modified PDMS, PEG) that the boat has to remain in motion
with a minimum of 3knt to make it difficult for barnacle settlement in the juvenile phase.
PTFE is physically harder but heating to 400° on application, is not practical.
Perhaps the problem is better approached by manufacturing a more durable
nonpolar film and then adhering it to the hull. as in graphic film.
Could be made thicker that way; although I think the inherent "toughness"
is an issue that has yet to be resolved.
There is a Co doing it here and the guy running the travel lift at Tauranga
has had it done. Must check the result. Bearing in mind this i think is just
a PDMS film. Early days, keeping my fingers crossed.

Some light reading for you.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full...897?src=recsys

[Tornadosailing]

I currently have a test panel of SeaCoat in the water in West Palm Beach Florida.

I'll let you know in a month or two.

[Matt Johnson]

Originally Posted by Ilona

We are going to test a new kind of antifouling! It’s a silicone-based antifouling from Hempel. It’s not SilicOne but a two component new kind. It’s especially designed to be suitable for cruising/anchoring in warm sea water and a lot of prolonged anchoring and sailing at relatively low speeds (so perfect for a sailboat).

I just ordered SilicOne yesterday to use on our aluminum boat. Maybe I'll have to contact Hempel directly and see if they'll let me do a test too. I don't want to spend the time applying the SilicOne and have a better product available shortly after.

Matt

[Willroy]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

Lots of folks explaining why this wont work... hey, guys, this is a TEST, one to help see IF it will work in a yottie environment. I for one am quite interested in the outcome, and applaud both Hemple and the OP for getting on with it. One hopes for an unbiased review, and that the experiment is monitored well for interim reports.

Keep on truckin' Ilona!

Jim

For me Silicone didn't work. After 5 months in the water silione comes loose from the hull as you can see in the picture. And the autorelease didn't work unless I went into the water to remove the growth. Until today i didn't got an explanation from HEMPEL

[Matt Johnson]

Originally Posted by Willroy

For me Silicone didn't work. After 5 months in the water silione comes loose from the hull as you can see in the picture. And the autorelease didn't work unless I went into the water to remove the growth. Until today i didn't got an explanation from HEMPEL

Was this Silic One? If so, did you use their tie coat and primer? How far did it flake off (just the Silic one or did the tie coat flake off too)?

Thanks for posting,

Matt

[hellosailor]

Willroy-
"Until today i didn't got an explanation from HEMPEL"
Does that mean you didn't get a response until just now, today? And that you're not sharing that response with us?

Or do you mean that *as*of*today* you still haven't gotten a response?

[Willroy]

Originally Posted by hellosailor

Willroy-
"Until today i didn't got an explanation from HEMPEL"
Does that mean you didn't get a response until just now, today? And that you're not sharing that response with us?

Or do you mean that *as*of*today* you still haven't gotten a response?

Yes "as of today" is what i mean. As soon as i have an explanation i will share it of course

[Dave_S]

Hi Ilona, do you have any feed back, I am busting to hear good news but also bad news if that's what it is.

Originally Posted by Ilona

We are going to test a new kind of antifouling! It’s a silicone-based antifouling from Hempel. It’s not SilicOne but a two component new kind. It’s especially designed to be suitable for cruising/anchoring in warm sea water and a lot of prolonged anchoring and sailing at relatively low speeds (so perfect for a sailboat). It’s supposed to keep the boat clean up to 4 months of at anchor in these warm waters (in cool waters probably much longer)! And it’s supposed to last at least 5-7 years before you have to reapply a new layer! Does this sound fantastic or too good to be true?

We’re very exited to find out whether or not this will work like they say it does. It’s being used on professional big vessels but not really yet on yachts. The manufacturer wants to expand to yachts as well and we’re going to test it and report our findings.

I’m very happy that this is something (relatively) environmentally friendly. If it lasts 5-7 years, this saves quite a volume of regular antifouling. + they claim it stays on the boat, doesn’t erode during sailing/cleaning like regular antifoulings do. So no harmful particles in the ocean. Only when you would remove it (by hot pressure wash), the product comes off but if it’s true that you don’t loose anything during sailing/cleaning, this would mean it will be much healthier for our oceans and coral reefs.

It’s quite a big deal to apply because all the current antifouling needs to be removed up to the gel coat. At the moment we’re working on this. On our GRP sailing vessel it’s relatively easy because there was no thick layer (it all eroded into the ocean :-( ) and sanding works pretty well. Still, it’s not a fun job and it’s hot and dusty (even though we use a big vacuum cleaner on the rotor sanding tool). At the time of writing, the job is almost finished (yeeeeeah).

Some time ago I’ve posted a thread about silicone based antifouling because I was very curious to find out how people like it, what their experiences are. It seemed there is a lot of interest from others but there was not much information to find from people using it in the field. Since it’s such a big thing to apply it, it’s expensive, labour intensive and quite a big deal to have silicone on your boat, we were actually not keen on just trying it out ourselves. But when I emailed Hempel, and told them what we were going to do (long time cruising in tropical waters with long periods of time at anchor), they came up with this product which in fact seems to be much more promising than SilicOne. They were interested for us to test it so they have a sailing vessel in the most difficult circumstances to see how their product works in this situation and if we’re happy, they have free publicity in return.

So, there we go. I have nothing to report yet, since we’re still sanding but this is almost done and then we’re going to apply it. Let me know whether you guys are interested in the process and our findings.

Back to sanding and wishing we’d have a smaller boat ;-),
Ilona

[Suijin]

The dictate that the hull had to be taken down to the gelcoat is concerning. I for one would not want to remove the eight coats of barrier coat that is protecting my hull.

Also, if this is anything like PropSpeed then it is relatively fragile and not at all resistant to any real abrasion. If you anchor in conditions where wind is against current your rode would likely chew up the coating pretty good.

If the material cost can be extrapolated from PropSpeed material cost then it’s going to be very high.

[Dave_S]

I think you replace it with 3 base coats.

It would depend on the performance of the product. Quite happy to work hard today if it saves me 3 or 4 times the work in years to come.

I'm a bit worried usually in cases like this no news = bad news but we will find out hopefully.

[BigBeakie]

Ilona,

It's been about 8 months since you posted re your trial of a new Hempel silicone based product.

How is it going?

Does it prevent attachment of barnacles?

Very keen to hear your assesment.


Sent from my iPad using Cruisers Sailing Forum

[lateral]

Don't know whether this has been discussed.
By definition these non-polar products have a serious downfall.
How do you overcoat when the object is a completely non polar
chemistry finished product.

That where a removeable premanufactured film concept has advantages.
The current one the barnacle rim cuts through the film if left to mature and is not slippery enough yet.
You need a heat gun to remove film.
Early days hopefully.

[propmaster]

Lots of words spurred out here, PDMS, PTFE , PEG what do any of these have to do with the current antifoulings and silicones? The cost of a regular antifouling is somewhere around 2-4 $, I can't even buy the cheapest silicone at manufacturer prices with this, Europe said it would ban the use of the poisons you say by 2020 but how would that even be possible since most antifouling manufacturers are German based or German friendly, the excuse they have is that by using less potent poisons the total fuel consumption of maritime transport would go up and increase CO2 pollution so they keep selling the hazardous poisons. Genetic engineering? Sorry this won't work, it doesn't even make any sense since any agent must cross the membrane to reach and interact with the DNA so it works like regular antifouling where the agent is depleted like the poison which in this case is organism selective unlike the metal salts which pretty much kill anything, humans included.
If you ever want to introduce a new type of antifouling "poison" then you have to spend close to a million for approval from global agencies and still not be completely sure they will allow it.
So there you have it , the cost of manufacturing is close to zero, they sell this to large ships with a profit margin of a few dollars but they make way more than 50000$ on each ship because the amount needed for a ship is very large and they sell the same kind of paint to recreational users like boat and yacht owners for 150-250$ or even more where a large sum of this profit goes straight to the pockets of the resellers or shops which you so much love.
Oh the best one I saved for last, the government funding for new antifouling research is spent on existing large manufacturers.
From a marketing aspect everyone will continue to buy antifoulings with copper, zinc pyrithione and metal oxides because it's what everyone uses and humans have a herd mentality even if a new coating which works as well or better than current technology emerges.

[JustMurph]

Any update here Ilona?